Winton Carrera Cup Review

We did it!! We won our first Carrera Cup Round and added two more race wins to the tally!

Winton was a fantastic weekend for us and yet again showed that the hard work, persistence and passion that is shared by the entire McElrea Racing team produces results. On paper, Winton wasn’t a track we should’ve done well at. It’s home territory for the Victorian based teams, I hadn’t ever driven a Porsche around the circuit and McElrea Racing hadn’t had much past success down there at all. However, at no point did we let this dictate our performance and we focused on executing our processes and optimising every aspect of the weekend we had control over.

We learned a lot on Friday during the two practice sessions and I was very comfortable with the car and our pace. We were only eighth on the timing sheets, but lots of the cars in front of us chose to ran green tyres.

Qualifying on Saturday morning was a very tricky session. It was only 10 minutes long which translates to around 6 laps. Keeping in mind it takes around 5 laps to prep a new Michelin Tyre (especially when it’s a cold morning) there was a lot of pressure on the final two laps of Qualifying to set the order for the race. I had a decent lap, setting a purple first sector but made a small mistake in the middle sector. We ended up crossing the line 3rd fastest only 0.15s off pole.

I had a lot of confidence going into the first race that our car was going to be competitive. I had a great start slotting into second place at the first corner. During the first few laps we found our rhythm and settled in to the race. We had to navigate a few challenges when other drivers dropped coolant on the circuit (making the track surface slippery and unpredictable) and every lap edged closer to the lead. With three laps to go we were catching a bit of traffic and it was at this point I made a move for the lead, passing around the outside of turn 10. Once we were in the lead we focused on minimising our mistakes and bringing the car home. It was an awesome race and I was super happy with the win!

Race 2 on Sunday morning was the endurance race for the weekend, being 25 laps around Winton Motor Raceway. Starting from Pole we had another good start and led through the first couple of corners. However, Dave Russell had a good run out of the second corner and passed us at Turn 3. There was a bit of contact on his way through which actually bent our steering but again we had to reset and focus on maximising what we had. I didn’t have the pace to match Dave but I did have enough pace to pull away from P3. After 25 laps, we came home P2 and put us in a great spot to capitalize in the afternoon.

For Race 3, we had a pretty good tyre bank and my car was all fixed from the minor damage in Race 2. I knew the start would be critical and if we could lead into the first corner it would make winning the race a lot easier!! Fortunately, we did exactly that and I had what felt like one of the best starts I’ve done in these new generation Cup Cars. After navigating the first few corners and bringing all four tyres up to temp we pushed hard to pull a gap to second place. It was an awesome race and I really felt like I was one with the car. After 16 laps, we crossed the line first which meant we also won the round!

Thank you to everyone that sent me messages over the weekend and thank you to the McElrea team and all of my Partners for their amazing support. It’s only a few weeks until Darwin for Round 3. I can’t wait!!

Cheers,
Harri

STATS

Qualifying - 3rd
Race 1 - 1st
Race 2 - 2nd
Race 3 - 1st

After Round 2 of 8

Championship Position - 1st
Michelin Junior Championship Pos. - 1st

Pictures from the weekend in Gallery.

Harri Jones24 May 2022